Earlier this month, author Elizabeth Gilbert made a big announcement to her 1.5 million-plus Facebook followers: “There is something I wish to tell you today — something which I hope and trust you will receive with grace,” writes the 47-year-old author of best sellers “Eat Pray Love” and “Big Magic.”

“This spring, I received news that would change my life forever. My best friend Rayya Elias was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer — a disease for which there is no cure.”

This was tragic news, but not the focus of her post, which went on to say that since the diagnosis, Gilbert had come to realize that this woman — her best friend of 15 years — was more than just a beloved companion and pal. “Death — or the prospect of death — has a way of clearing away everything that is not real, and in that space of stark and utter realness, I was faced with this truth: I do not merely love Rayya; I am in love with Rayya. And I have no more time for denying that truth.

“For those of you who are doing the math here, and who are wondering if this situation is why my marriage came to an end this spring, the simple answer is yes.”

While the 2006 memoir “Eat Pray Love” told the story of Gilbert finding herself after a difficult divorce in her 30s — and subsequently falling in love with her second husband, Brazilian importer José Nunes — the book sold more than 10 million copies and sparked an entire movement of self-enlightenment therapy. It was predicated on the idea that the answer was always elsewhere — somewhere really photogenic, like Italy, Bali or India. (No one ever seems to find the Answer at the Port Authority or in an industrial city in Guangdong Province.)

But Gilbert’s newest announcement shows that maybe the route to happiness isn’t in India, or in Italy, or on trips to other countries and other cultures. It could be sitting right next to you all along.

While “Eat Pray Love” is certainly not wholly responsible for “enlightenment tourism,” since the book’s publication the industry has grown tenfold. Travel companies have reported a 164 percent rise in these sorts of spiritual trips in the last five years.

Over the past decade, women have been encouraged to believe that money should be no consideration when it comes to True Happiness, whether it’s an expensive yoga retreat, healing seminar or a jaunt to another country. At least one upscale hotel chain in Bali, Thailand and Bhutan started offering specific “Eat Pray Love” excursions aimed mostly at women. The services of Balinese healer Ketut Liyer, who is a major character in the book, were so in demand that tourists waited in daylong lines just to see him.

None of this is problematic on its own; there’s nothing wrong with a truth-seeking jaunt here and there. The problem comes with an industry that promotes constant seeking — and spending — without end.

Women have been encouraged to believe that money should be no consideration when it comes to True Happiness … The problem comes with an industry that promotes constant seeking — and spending — without end.

It’s the idea that urges people to “find their passion” — preferably by quitting their full-time job (Gilbert’s own yearlong vacation was subsidized by her publisher, Viking). It’s nice work if you can leave it, but most people can’t afford to, something the genre never seemed to take as a valid concern, as it was mostly concerned with selling more books, trips and seminars.

Instead, we should be focusing on fostering greater connections with the people who are already around us. According to a 2006 report in the American Sociological Review, the average American has fewer close friends than they did 20 years ago, and 25 percent of American adults reported not having a single person they felt comfortable confiding in.

None of this is a knock on Gilbert. She’s a hugely successful author with a wide range of talents, who seems to be moving ahead in her life without fear or stagnation. But to the followers — the “Eat Pray Love” generation, we’ll call them — one can only hope that Gilbert’s latest news encourages them to spend a moment focusing on people in their lives that already exist, rather than on mystics on faraway shores.

Her relationship with Rayya is certainly no substitute happy ending, but instead a moment of truth, difficult and sad and beautiful.